In the last three months I’ve met an interesting bunch of people. Not in person, but on the internet.

The only reason why I’ve met all these interesting people is because I’ve decided to start this blog. I’ve met bloggers from different countries, different walks of life and have been exposed to an amazing amount of viewpoints. I’ve read less books and more blogs, spend more time on Facebook and Pinterest that I’m prepared to admit and was spending time thinking about blogging even while I was pretending to listen to my children.

This started me thinking about how the world is changing. When I was a little girl we were always in the streets with our bicycles. The only rules were that we had to be home before dark. Half the time my mother did not know at which friends house I was, and this did not worry her. Now my teenager spends the same amount of time in his room in front of his computer, playing games with his friends online. The kids have the same amount of social interaction with less personal interaction. We all spend so much time in front of our screens, but I do not think the social part has disappeared. I just think it has changed. The entire social structure of our society is changing.

These days you don’t just throw your kids out of the house and say go and play at a friend’s house. In most cases it needs to be arranged with the mom with a phone call days before the date. I rarely have friends that just pitch up at my house. Everyone has cell phones, which means that you phone before you pop in for tea. In all the time that I’ve stayed in my house I have yet to have a neighbour coming over to borrow a cup of sugar.

Starting to blog was a way for me to get everything that I have to say out in the world. What I did not expect it to be was a wonderful new social life of other bloggers with interesting ideas. Strangers that I might never meet in person that is starting to feel like friends.

I don’t know if we had a better life when we could just take our bicycles and disappear till sunset, it was certainly a different one, but I’m extremely happy that I found a new community of friends through blogging.

Which is why I’ve made a commitment to myself to see at least this year through as a blogger. Struggling to find my tribe. Even it it takes me ages of writing each word an agonising ten times and end up like Snoopy with ‘It was a dark and stormy night.’

Great post!!! You are probably the same generation as me…meaning young I remember the same things about my childhood: playing safely outside and coming in only for food, sleep and homework. Nowadays everything is done online and it’s spreading so fast! Happy New Year!!!

Of course we’re young. (At heart.) I feel sorry that my children will miss out on that safety and adventures but they have so many other exciting stuff that we did not have. I think it is really hard to compare.